Bob Brookmeyer, Gus Johnson, Gerry Mulligan, Wyatt Reuther

circa: July 18, 1962

Dave Bailey, Bill Crow, Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan

circa: December 23, 1958
        January 15, 1959

Bob Brookmeyer, Gus Johnson, Gerry Mulligan, Wyatt Reuther

July 18, 1962

Jazz Casual

Dave Bailey, Bill Crow, Art Farmer, Gerry Mulligan

8, 12, 14 = December 23, 1958
10 = January 15, 1959

What Is There To Say?

 LINER NOTES

I'm not sure Gerry Mulligan was thinking of any of these things when he startled the jazz world with his concept of a painoless quartet. Perhaps he was innovating. Or maybe just saving a salary, I don't know. But Gerry was the first to capitalize on the idea that the functions of a piano can be taken over by other instruments, and easily. Miss a part of the rhythm section? Jazz pianists don't play rhythm any more. and Bob Whitlock, and it was an astounding moment for the jazz world. I predicted that a rash of copycat groups would spring up overnight. Wrong. I also predicted that rock `n' roll would only last about six weeks, but that's another story.

I've read that Gerry became a professional arranger at an incredibly early age, and I know this to be true. In the middle fifties I did some gigs with Tommy Tucker (a name band way back when) and Tommy was proud that he had a few Mulligan arrangements in the book written (and hand copied) by Gerry when he was fifteen. The parts were blotchy and a little strange looking, but the music was beautiful. By the time he reached the ripe old age of twenty, Gerry was playing with, and writing for, the Gene Krupa big band, and first attracted national attention with his chart on "Disc Jockey Jump." He went on to write for Claude Thornhill, Elliot Lawrence, Stan Kenton, and other top bands, and was part of that wonderful Gil Evans/Miles Davis Nonet. Later on, after hitting it big with his quartet and becoming a premier international jazz star, Gerry had the opportunity to form his own big band, write scores for film and TV, and be pretty much anything he wanted to be. And as we all know, he had a wonderful career as an arranger/composer/performer. And yet, the one thing he's best known for, even today, is the quartet, which he kept coming back to throughout the years. The personnel changed from time to time, but the group always swung and the writing was amazing. And because of the quality of Gerry's sidemen, it's often hard to tell where the writing leaves off and the jazz improv begins.

Which leads me to this CD, which is Gerry with two different quartets in the same general time frame; late fifties to early sixties. Each group had Gerry and another front line performer as well as an excellent rhythm section. The front line players you'll be hearing are Bob Brookmeyer and Art Farmer, with the rhythm sections Wyatt "Bull" Reuther (bass)-Gus Johnson (drums) and Bill Crow (bass)-Dave Bailey (drums) respectively. Art Farmer has been and still is my absolute favorite jazz trumpet player ever since I had the good fortune to hear him and work with him on the Oscar Pettiford big band in the early sixties. Bob Brookmeyer, another jazz giant, blends his valve trombone so well with Gerry's baritone sax and their musical concepts are so complimentary that the word "cloning" comes to mind. He's easily the best trombonist I never worked with. The results of all of these state-of-the-art jazz players working together, as you'll hear, are as good structurally and harmonically as any string quartet or other chamber music ever written by any composer from any era whatsoever. (Sorry I'm so wishy-washy with my opinions.) Okay ...to the tunes!

The Gerry-Brookmeyer group starts things out with Five Brothers, a Mulligan original, and after the ensemble chorus, Gerry solos, followed by Bob, with Gerry soon sneaking in some counterpoint in the background. Then, in the third chorus, pure improv from both at once, which works amazingly well, blending seamlessly into the final eight bars, where they revisit the melody. Next comes Motel, with the Gerry-Farmer group, an up tempo original structured loosely on "I Got Rhythm," and Dave Bailey, with some excellent four bar solos, can truly say that. And now, as The Monty Python Group used to say, for something completely different. And it's Love in New Orleans, a pretty tune by Gerry warmly played by the Gerry/Brookmeyer ensemble mostly with a sort of two-beat Dixieland feel, an eyebrow-raiser considering the strict be-bop mentality of the day. But I've always thought you could've put a straw hat and a striped blazer on Gerry and plunked him down in the middle of any riverboat Dixieland band of any era and he would have sounded good. And right at home. My Funny Valentine follows, with the Art Farmer guys, and Gerry's distinctive arrangement single-handedly put "Valentine" into the jazz repertoire. Built around that C pedal/descending bass line, it is still the way good players perform the tune today. Four For Three comes next, and is the only jazz waltz in the set. A typical Mulligan arrangement of his own tune, it's well written, well played, and another good example of the incredible sympatico between Mulligan and Brookmeyer. Walkin' Shoes took me back to the days when my brother, Red Mitchell, played with the Mulligan quartet. It was a brand new tune then. In this version, with Art Farmer, there are no surprises, with the possible exception of the last eight bars, which sound like Mulligan humorously razzing his own music. Or maybe it's directed to some jazz promoter after the check bounced. Next is Marguerite, which has a kind of bossa nova feel, and is about as Latin as Bull Reuther and Gus Johnson ever get. Festive Minor is, as the title suggests, a nice minor tune, with good cup-muted ensemble work from Art Farmer and extensive melodic soloing from bassist Bill Crow. So much for the pianoless quartet: On the Jimmy Van Heusen tune Darn That Dream, you will hear the unmistakable sound of a piano. It's Gerry Mulligan on the keyboard (along with Brookmeyer and cohorts) making a complete liar out of me, and having none of those piano problems discussed earlier. Go know. As Catch Can is next, with Art Farmer and the wondrous Bill Crow-Dave Bailey rhythm duo. Both get to solo here, and to good advantage. Jive at Five is next. It's a golden oldie written by Count Basie and Sweets Edison, and once again Gerry and Brookmeyer revisit the two-beat near-Dixie feel. Even though it's played in 4/4 time here, those guys with the straw hats and striped blazers on the riverboat could safely add this piece to their repertoire without getting thrown overboard. Now comes News From Blueport, which is not only a suspected pun, but Gerry's only blues piece in this CD. Appropriately enough, the group played this tune when they appeared at The Newport Jazz Festival in 1958, which became the basis of an award winning movie short called Jazz on a Summer's Day. How do I know this astounding piece of trivia? Because I played that same festival that year with Anita O'Day, Jimmy Jones and John Poole, and we're in the film too. Next is George Bassman's I'm Getting Sentimental Over You. Besides being a wonderful theme song for Tommy Dorsey for all those years, "Sentimental" happens to be a very playable, jammable, interesting tune with pretty chord changes, as Gerry and Bob Brookmeyer et al demonstrate here. Just in Time, the Juke Styne classic tune from the Broadway musical Bells Are Ringing is next, with the Farmer.Crow.Bailey group, and this arrangement not only has the much discussed two-beat feel, but bassist Bill Crow actually plays two to the bar for a while before going into 4/4 time, something much morw politically correct in that era. This tune , like "Sentimental" is much played in jazz circles, but never better thab the Mulligan/Farmer work here. Open Country closes the set, and if you like happy sounding arranged-yet-improvised jazz that swings, Gerrym Bob Brookmeyer, Bill Reuther, and Gus Johnson come through again.

Of course, you can't capture, or do justice to, Gerry Mulligan's life and times with some liner notes and a few recordings. There was so much more to him than that. But among all his accomplishments, one of the best ideas Gerry ever had was to form that now famous quartet. And this CD certainly captures the essence of that idea.